


The Good Time

by strangeallure



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Childhood Memories, Gen, Melancholy, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeallure/pseuds/strangeallure
Summary: Michael reminisces about her sibling bond with Spock before the attack on the Vulcan Learning Center.Back then, Spock used to look up at her with his big, shining eyes full of admiration, and she could let herself be with him, could share with him small things that she couldn’t share with anyone else.
Relationships: Michael Burnham & Spock
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	The Good Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by David Bowie's "April's Tooth of Gold", of all things.
> 
> Thanks goes to Frangipani, who keeps pushing me into trying to write.

There was a time - after the hurt of her parents’ death had somewhat faded and Spock had accepted her presence in the house, but before the terrorist attack on the Vulcan Learning Center - which, even after all these years, decades by now, Michael still remembered as _the good time_.

Back then, Spock used to look up at her with his big, shining eyes full of admiration, and she could let herself be with him, could share with him small things that she couldn’t share with anyone else.

The good time was when they’d truly become brother and sister, a bond so strong that even when she tried to hack it in two and scorch its ends, wouldn’t fully break. A bond that might have turned from love into animosity on his part (she always, always knew that it wasn’t hate, that it couldn’t be), a bond that had never turned into anything less than love on her part - another useless, burnt stump of love trying to reach out from her chest with nowhere to go.

That it had felt so right should have told her that it couldn’t last.

One of the best things during the good time was when Michael told Spock about all the stories she’d read, and they made them come true in their own make-believe world.

Her parents had always been working long hours, and on the far-away research stations they had lived at, there often weren’t any children her age at all, so Michael had soon become a voracious reader, especially of adventures stories, and Spock wanted to hear them all, about mighty knights and pirate queens and sea monsters and treasure islands, but the ones with April the pirate queen were his favorite. No matter how detailed Michael’s story, he always had more questions and encouraged her to make up more details and additional characters.

Vulcan culture knew stories, too, but most of them seemed to be parables, ways to impart wisdom and teach philosophy, and the idea of telling stories just for the fun of it fascinated her little brother.

Soon, the stories became more collaborative, and he started to make up his own little characters and events. Tentative at first ( _Do you think one of the pirate crew might have had blue hair?_ or _I wonder if they ever found a secret compartment in their schooner._ ) and then more confident, blurting out his ideas, delighted when Michael wove them into the tale she was currently telling.

And then the rains came. It was Michael’s first rainy season on Vulcan, and it took her by surprise, mesmerized her, how the water pouring out of the sky made everything look so different on this dry, inhospitable planet. On the climate-controlled research stations of her former life, she hadn’t ever had the chance to experience anything like it.

“Is it safe to go outside?” she’d whispered to Spock as they were huddling in the corner by the big picture windows surrounding the house’s atrium, and he’d nodded with enthusiasm.

Spock had been so happy to go out into the rain with her – although their parents disapproved of them getting their clothes wet, especially with no reason to be out in the first place – looking up into the sky as the drops fell, blinking rapidly and spreading out his arms just like she did.

They pretended to be part of a crew of pirates hiding out in a seaside town, waiting for the pirate queen’s ship to return and take them on their next adventure. They drew an elaborate treasure map - it had been their mission to find it and bring it to the pirate queen, they decided - and Michael even remembered part of a sea shanty from one of the holo stories she had read and taught it to Spock.

One day, Michael sneaked some food and cups from the kitchen, and they hid behind the palm trees in their parent’s garden, letting their cups fill with rain water as they made up more stories of pirate queen April, the smartest and most adventurous pirate in all the lands and seas.

“I am so excited to finally meet her tomorrow,” Spock beamed at her, his face wet with rain. Since he was a new recruit, this would be the first time seeing their queen in person.

“You will be fine,” Michael reassured him. “You proved yourself when you helped me find the treasure map, and the queen always has a place for smart pirates who aren’t afraid of hard work.” 

“I’m not,” he agreed eagerly, “I will work very hard.”

“I know,” she nodded. “Just keep your head down and do what she says and,” Michael paused and gave him a stern look, “whatever you do: don’t mention her golden tooth.”

Spock sucked in a breath. “And if I do?”

Michael schooled her face into a very earnest expression. “Then she’ll make you walk the plank and jump into the sea.”

For a moment, Spock’s eyes widened in shock, but then Michael made a silly face at him, rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue out, and they both started laughing.

That day, the day of April the pirate queen and her band of fearless pirates, when Michael hid out in the atrium with her little brother, eating soggy sandwiches and drinking rainwater from heirloom teacups, that’s what had always stayed with her of the good time. The memory she couldn’t shake, the one memory she couldn’t bear to lose or even bury.

Four weeks later, a bomb went off because of her. Four weeks later, she was hurt and bleeding and thinking of her little brother, her little shadow, praying to whatever force in the universe would listen that he was okay; promising that she’d never endanger him again, that she’d run away and let him return to his old life, that she would do whatever it took if only he was alive, if only he hadn’t been hurt.

Spock had been unharmed and Michael had kept her promise, and when their parents had found her the night she tried to run away and had brought her back home, Michael had found another way to keep him safe, to make sure his proximity to his uselessly human sister would never put him in harm’s way again.

She never dwelled on what she’d said to him that night, the hurt she had caused him. Instead, she’d kept herself busy with her studies, trying to become a simulacrum of a perfect Vulcan student.

But every rainy season, once the house was quiet and she was sure that everyone was asleep, Michael patted down the stairs, barefoot, and went out into the atrium in nothing but her nightgown, folding herself into the corner behind the palm trees, letting the rain wash over her face as she thought about April the pirate queen and her young, eager recruit. 

Eventually, the taste of rain on her lips turned salty like sea water, and Michael wished that a ship would come and take her away.


End file.
